


Forgiveness

by adoxyinherear



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 23:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18838942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adoxyinherear/pseuds/adoxyinherear
Summary: A little smutty something set between chapters 16 and 17 ofPaper and Ink, a longer work exploring the slow burn glory that is Solavellan Hell.





	Forgiveness

I am learning that there is no such thing as denying Bull where drinking is involved.

Josephine seems to have a sixth sense about when to press visiting nobility to bed, allowing for my drunken stumbling to my chambers to go unobserved. But after Adamant, after everything that Adamant brought to terrible clarity, I am warranted a little liquid oblivion, I think.

I kicked out of my boots halfway up the stair, struggled out of breeches and armor on the landing despite the chill. I found myself humming Maryden’s latest, a too-sweet verse for the horrors the Wardens were responsible for. The fire hadn’t been laid and the doors to the balcony were still open, flooding the room with moonlight and threats of ice. I drew a fur around my shoulders, wishing that Solas had taught me the trick of coaxing a flame with only my hands – a fireball or a scorching sigil I could manage, but I didn’t have the control for hearth flame.

I was trying to decide between even bothering with the fire or simply crawling into bed when a dark shape moved on the balcony. I stepped back, suddenly alert despite the drink, only to slump against a chair when I recognized Solas’ silhouette.

“You’ve been drinking.”

“I was coerced.”

Solas only laughed, brief as a candle snuffed out. I didn’t try to rise again. Solas closed the doors behind him and then those beside him. I heard only his footfalls and breath as he worked, soft and steady both, a contrast to the wind’s brutal howl outside the glass. I huddled dumbly in the fur, stirred by the sight of him but feelings too raw, too near the surface, courtesy of Marass-Lok and The Iron Bull.

“I have been wanting to ask you how you could forgive the Wardens,” Solas said at last, though it was the fire he addressed as it leapt to red-orange life. “They were, they _are_ , guilty of unspeakable horrors.”

It was like the time he’d confronted me on the balcony, asked me if I’d been changed by the anchor. I could tell that he had been trying and failing to answer the question for himself.

“They believed they were doing what was necessary,” I said at last. “As we do.”

“Would you go to such lengths to seal the breach?”

Solas’ voice had become hard as stone. Maybe I imagined the little vibration, the quake that threatened his stillness.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But if I had to, I hope there would be someone left to forgive me, too.”

I thought he might ask me another question. I could see something working in him as he stood by the hearth, the roll of his shoulders, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. But when Solas turned, half his face in shadow and lips parted, it was clear he wasn’t interested any more in talking.

He’d crossed to me and lifted me, fur and all, in almost the same fluid movement. His mouth was on mine, teeth finding my lip, my jaw, my throat. His fingers entered me first and then the rest of him; it felt like he was trying to get through me to something else. To escape or to forget? Maybe to remember?

Solas was like a man starved, or an animal. I am sure now that there are bruises I cannot see, casualties of his urgency, the depth of his need. He brought me sweet rolls and strong coffee hours after, eyes still shining with exertion. I wasn’t frightened then and I’m not now.

It is good that I am not the only one to surrender to the ferocity of this feeling.


End file.
